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Went back to my hometown library and the card catalog room is now a coffee shop | Ask Anything - Pinecone Attack

Went back to my hometown library and the card catalog room is now a coffee shop

I visited my small town in Ohio last weekend and swung by the public library where I spent basically every summer as a kid. The whole back room where they used to keep the card catalog drawers is now a little coffee shop with mismatched couches and a fancy espresso machine. It threw me off because I remember pulling those wooden drawers out and flipping through the tiny typed cards to find books. Now kids just scan a QR code on their phones to check stuff out or reserve a study room. I even saw a librarian helping a little girl with a tablet instead of a printed map of the children's section. The coffee was pretty good actually, like $4 for a latte that beats the chain places. Has anyone else gone back to a place from their childhood and felt like it's a completely different world now?

2 comments

2 Comments

gray_gibson5mo ago

Hold up man it's not that deep. Libraries change with the times, that's just how it works. Coffee shops in libraries have been a thing for years now, it's not like they tore down the whole building and put in a nightclub. Card catalogs were clunky and took forever to use anyway, I don't miss flipping through all those sticky drawers. If the coffee's good and kids are still reading books who really cares about the furniture? You got a latte out of it and the place is still standing so seems like a win to me.

elliots495mo ago

Sounds like they traded the Dewey Decimal System for a dirty chai latte lmao. Honestly not mad about it since my local library still has those old wooden drawers but they’re covered in dust and nobody touches them. Probably for the best, kids these days would look at a card catalog like it’s a relic from the stone age. At least the coffee was decent and you got to mourn the past with caffeine lol.